Outside the Beltway

Comedienne Joan Rivers tells Howard Stern why she ditched a joke calling Michelle Obama “Backie O.”

Greg Mankiw has a plan for cutting the deficit.

UQ’s Thoreau makes a compelling point: “Usually people blame the 2nd amendment for a mass shooting. This time they’re blaming the 1st. But why not all the others?”

Is Jon Stewart the next Edward R. Murrow? No.

A Christmas tree tweets.

Two Ohio congressional districts are taking their talents to South Beach.

Gerard Van der Leun passes on a professorial rant entitled “Why You Got A ‘C'” that’s likely to be amusing primarily to those who have taught undergraduates.

Don Surber imagines this edition of “Hardball.”

The Julian Assange case makes Sweden look like a country that’s governed by congenital idiots and populated with nothing but crazy sluts and lawyers.

Joe Biden: “Obama: On the way to a failed presidency?”

SNL’s Julian Assange spoof isn’t their best work but it’s mildly amusing

Because no one should live in a world where Han didn’t shoot first.

“I’m terribly surprised that everyone everywhere on the political spectrum (here and there) is using Tuesday’s results as confirmation of the assumptions they’ve held all along.” – Josh Marshall

Now that the Republicans have control of the House, wheres the jobs? Why isn’t the economy fixed yet? Why do we still have a deficit? Why are we still in recession? Are Republicans secretly Muslim and trying to ruin our country?

The Onion spoofs life at a think tank with Boy, I Really Thought Like Shit Today.”

An ad for Republican Senate candidate Roy Blunt complains that his opponent voted to cut Medicare in order to support “government-run health care.”

The folks who gave us “So You Want to be a Lawyer?” follows up with “So You Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities?”

Randy Barnett will be giving a lecture at Boise State on the 28th. If he were a real lawyer, he’d lecture instead at a school in the SEC, Big 12, PAC 10, or ACC. I mean, where’s the challenge in lecturing in the WAC?

Washington City Paper editor Michael Schaffer has put out a satiric memo mocking the policies NPR and others have issued to reporters regarding this weekend’s Jon Stewart – Stephen Colbert rallies

Automated constructive blog comments cartoon fro xkcd.

Michigan Iraq War veteran gets NOT FUN vanity plate.

Andy Borowitz suggests “Three Things to Do When Clarence Thomas’s Wife Calls You.”

The blogosphere spends more time dissecting the lyrics of a classic Beatles song than John Lennon did in writing them.

There’s apparently a whole series of these spoof ads for the non-existent car.

An amusing parody of the typical press report on a new scientific finding.